How to get more children to have a healthy and fun childhood

Parents and grandparents have been told for decades that parents should make sure that their children’s health and well-being are closely monitored.
But new research suggests that parents are actually more likely to take on extra care and responsibilities when children are in their care.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) published new research on Monday that says parents who have children with special needs are more likely than other parents to spend more time and energy with their children and to make more frequent trips to the doctor.
The new research was based on data from more than 6,000 children in the U.S. from kindergarten to 12th grade.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of children in grades kindergarten through 12.
The study found that parents who reported having at least two children with a special needs diagnosis were 4.5 times more likely overall to spend at least 2 hours a day and more than 4.6 times more than 3 hours a week with their child with a serious health condition.
Parents who reported spending at least one hour a day with their newborns with a major health condition were 2.5 to 3 times more often than those who reported no such health conditions.
The study also found that the average time spent with a child with the condition was 3.6 hours, which is more than two hours more than parents who did not report having children with conditions.
Parents reported spending more time with their own children when their children were in the care of the parents than when their child was in the custody of a foster parent, a person who has the right to care for the child.
This is a finding that has not been documented in other studies, said the study’s lead author, Dr. Joanna E. Williams, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins and director of the Bloomberg School’s Child and Family Research Institute.
Williams also is a member of the Center for Child and Adolescent Health at the Bloomberg Health and Development Center.
Williams said that the new findings could be used by policymakers to reduce the cost of child care.
The costs of care are often high, especially when it comes to childcare, she said.
Parents should be able to share in the costs of providing care, and they should be allowed to choose which providers are appropriate for their child, she added.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that all parents of children with serious health conditions spend at most 2 hours per day with children, and only at the home of their child.
However, many families report having one or more children who have serious health problems at home.
The CDC says the cost-benefit analysis it used to come up with the recommended guidelines for the average amount of time spent per day was based solely on the parents’ own assessments of their own health conditions and was not intended to be a guide to parents’ best choices for how much time to spend with their kids.
Researchers said the findings have important implications for child health care providers, because it suggests that many parents do not realize how much more time they need to spend on caring for their children.
“We think this is an important step toward better understanding the health and wellbeing of children,” said Williams.
The research was published in the journal Pediatrics.
Source: Johns Hopkins University